He saw his grandmother’s old hands turning the pages of a weathered book back in Kingston. Saw the sketch of the same flowers. Heard her voice: The prettiest poisons do their work quietly. Oils on the leaves, baby. Touch them wrong and they get into the skin, the blood, the air.
The doctors weren’t looking at the room. They were looking only at the baby.
And now they were preparing surgery.
Marcus could see it in the rush, the instruments, the movement of bodies. They were about to cut Oliver open searching for a hidden cause that did not exist. The operation would kill him faster than the poison.
For one last moment Marcus thought of his mother. If he did what he was thinking about, she could lose everything. They could lose the cottage, the job, the fragile life she had built through years of swallowing humiliation. He could walk away. Pretend he hadn’t understood. Save himself.
But then he thought of his grandmother telling him that knowledge was an inheritance, one that mattered only if it was used when it counted.
So Marcus stood up from behind the fountain and ran toward the mansion.
He hit the service entrance at full speed. The door, blessedly, was unlocked. He sprinted through the kitchen, startling staff and sending a pot crashing to the floor, then took the narrow servant staircase two, three steps at a time. Briggs, the head of security, shouted behind him. Two guards appeared at the top of the stairs, wide and hard-faced, arms out to stop him.
Marcus feinted left, ducked right, slipped under one arm, twisted away from grasping hands, and ran down the hallway toward the nursery.
He threw open the door.
Eighteen heads turned.
The room erupted instantly.
“Who is that?”
“Security!”
“Get him out!”
Arthur Kensington, standing near the crib with the face of a man already half destroyed by fear, stepped forward.
“Who are you? How did you get in here?”
The guards were on Marcus before he could answer. Hands seized his shoulders and arms, lifting him off his feet. But he did the only thing left to him.
He screamed.
“The plant! It’s the plant on the window! It’s poisoning him!”
No one stopped.
“Digitalis!” Marcus shouted, fighting the grip. “The oils are toxic. It’s on the crib, the curtains, everything. He’s breathing it, touching it. Get it out of here!”
Still they dragged him backward.
Arthur Kensington’s face hardened. “Remove him. Now.”
And something in Marcus broke loose.